


Something Wicked (This Way Comes)

by fireflystorm



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Dark, Gore, Humanstuck, Jack the Ripper AU, Mental Instability, Multi, Murder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-09 19:04:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflystorm/pseuds/fireflystorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this particular city, strangeness is normalcy. Amongst the characters that highlight the place are a pessimistic soothsayer, an enthusiastic mortician, and a doctor who has all too many secrets. That, however, is the least of their problems. After the death of David Strider, a much-beloved palace guard, brings together the odd little community, a string of horrific murders begins systematically dismantling the trust, whilst in some cases it yet goes unnoticed. In the midst, Jonathan becomes fascinated with life outside his comfortable estate, and ends up right in the middle of The Ripper's path.</p><p>AU: Victorian, Jack the Ripper-centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Feet hit the pavement hard and breath came out heavy in the thick humid air. The cobblestone path was still slick from earlier rain and people had gathered in the streets, talking as people do about whatever tickled their fancies. They hardly had a moment to look up from their conversations as the nobleman pushed his way past, and as his bend trailed behind him one woman had the audacity to call out, “After you, with the push!”

The world seemed to feel the sorrow that hung heavy in his heart. The sky was dreary and gray, with no sun to be seen even in the small partings. Certainly, to most it was just any other day, aside from the noble’s apparent urgency. Jonathan’s chest hurt with the weight of it, really, and he’d moved slowly through the morning as though through molasses before it occurred that he might nearly miss the funeral. In fact, he wasn’t reminded really until he was pulling on breeches and the sharp rapping of his adviser accompanied the husky voice; “If you would be so kind as to _join us_ , you lush guzzling glock, we might make it on time!”

The day before had left Jonathan with a sense of disconnect from his body and society. He’d slept late, near forgotten the funeral. His adviser left without him, intending by all means to meet him there, and that was the sequence leading up to his running through back streets to make his way to Abney Park. That, also, was what led up to his spotting a figure in the dim, wet shadows of a particular dead-end alley.

The figure was a man’s; a rather large man, slouched against the wall as though he couldn’t support his own broad shoulders a moment later. Perhaps, John thought, he was altogethery; but a moment’s glance and a rare bit of light allowed him to recognize the figure. He slid to a slick halt on the stone and took a step or two towards him.

“Sir,” he spoke in a voice that sounded foreign to him, “won’t you be late to … to the funeral?”

The man looked up to see the young man before him. The tragedy had taken the courage from John’s voice, as though the two weren’t familiar – and they were, but awkwardness hung heavily now. John caught his eyes behind the tinted lenses of his makeshift sun-glasses.

“I’m not going,” he answered, without an altogethery slur whatsoever. No, he was entirely sober, but there was some mad glint in his eyes that John could even see from a few metres and through two sets of lenses.

The younger man shifted on his feet. He had always found the older man mostly friendly in his demeanor, but now he was all edges and muscles; he was intimidating. He shook his head in the tiniest way to dismiss the thought. “Why is that?” He asked of him.

There was a silence for a time. It was tense but far from awkward, and if he’d lacked self-control Jonathan might have found himself leaning forward in anticipation of what the man might say. After a time, he did speak, and said, “When some-body dies in this place, people come to mourn who had never met the person before, yet knew another who did.” He paused again, but for a much shorter time. “How many people will say they knew him, when they didn’t at all?”

“I don’t know,” John answered dumbly. He stared at the other man, whose eyes bore into his own, holding them captive. He turned his body to signal he was leaving, yet couldn’t bring himself to look away.

After another silence, he regained his powers of speech. “I’m going,” he spoke, “and I offer my condolences … _I_ did know him, after all.” One short pause; a millisecond or two passed. “Goodbye, Mister Strider.”

John found himself walking the rest of the way to Abney Park, paying attention to the sound of the soles of his shoes as they scuffed the cobble path. He kept his eyes up, as any good-blood boy was to do, and he arrived late indeed: all those attending were gathered ‘round a rectangular, deep hole in the ground as a pastor read from a breeches Bible. He joined them unceremoniously, looking down at the wooden coffin upon which ‘DAVID STRIDER’ was engraved.

The other people there were familiar in only small ways. A local doctor, with his white hair and extravagant white suit, stood out amongst the mourning black. Next to him a bleak-eyed girl with her black hair all tied tight, and his adviser next to her, short by comparison with matching dark eyes. A woman standing back who was all angles and wore men’s breeches rather than a dress. Then Jonathan’s fiancée, who walked over to take his arm, slender and elegant with a look of deep, hidden turmoil behind her veil.

The others, though – they couldn’t have really known David. They couldn’t have known Dave, for he was a no-one, a palace guard who did little to come by any members of society save John himself. Had they even once seen the blonde-haired boy – he shuddered at the thought, yes, he was a corpse now – who lay now in the wooden box? No, he concluded. Dave’s brother had been right.

The pallbearers began to shovel dirt over the coffin and everyone thrust in a handful of dirt, themselves. In the trees nearby, there was a flicker of movement John hardly caught. He wondered if he had really seen it, and still wondered after the procession had ended. Condolences were exchanged among acquaintances, the quiet question of where his brother had been floating over their heads as though taunting them all.

As Johnathan left, he found himself feeling even less certain of what had transpired. David’s body wasn’t really in the casket, no, though he had been there to hold the fevered hand of his friend as he took his last breaths. The movement in the trees had been Dave observing his own funeral. A joke, maybe – not a funny one by any stretch. But all the same seeing his friend again he would laugh and say, “you really got me, all of us!”

Those fantasies didn’t do much, but he reassured himself it would be okay soon.

Walking from Abney, he saw again a flash of movement in the trees. He could have sworn it was the familiar figure of Dave’s older brother yet again, but he had been wearing white before, whereas it seemed this figure was decked in red. With a shake of the head, he caught up with his adviser and smiled – for himself, and for all the others.

He thought maybe they could use it.


	2. Chapter 2

The gruesome scene was laid out in front of them, and the head detective was certain she had never seen anything of this sort before. Of course, she couldn’t actually _see_ anything – she was blind for the most part, but her half-sister described to her the images in gorey detail, and she could easily smell the blood and other aromas of decay, the lingering scent of fear from the poor victim.

“Gross,” Vriska commented, crossing her arms over her chest and wrinkling her perfect long nose. “With all of this lately, you could think we have an epidemic on our hands.”

“An epidemic of what? Death?” Terezi countered, squatting down and pressing the heels of her palms onto the street for balance. She looked even less ladylike than normal that way – in her breeches and waistcoat and with thin red-blonde hair, she left something to be desired as far as marrying material went.

It didn’t help the appeal of it all in that the two women were standing a foot or so from another woman’s corpse. Her mouth hung open in some stereotypical fashion; teeth were missing, and she had a bruise along her jaw. There was an incision on her neck, precise though violent, and then more – large vessels severed, more incisions on the abdomen, cutting in deep.

“Close her eyes, would you?” The detective’s sister spoke with an edge. Her skirts shuffled as she leaned partways over the body. Other officers stood nearby them, keeping gawkers out of the way. Terezi reached out and with spindly fingers and closed the woman’s eyes. “What’s that?” She asked, using the same hand to point at the ground nearby. She could smell a tang and vaguely see sparkles of light – wet.

“Handprint. Don’t,” she started sharply, “get your hopes up. It’s only partial, and from a glove.”

“Well,” her sister began, returning her mostly-sightless aniridia-ridden eyes to the poor victim, “I’ll find who did this to you. For the sake of _justice._ ”

She could sense Vriska rolling her eyes but she wore only a smile regardless. No matter the dreariness of such things, a good investigation was exactly the sort which delighted her. She lived for the thrill of interrogation, the metallic smell of blood, the sudden relief in the air when something was solved in its completeness. But anyway, she needed a moment of space.

“Get her on the gurney,” Terezi ordered the doctors idling nearby. The intern quickly hopped to his feet and they began pulling from the cart the gurney as the woman began walking in the opposite direction.

“Where are you going?” Her sister called after her.

“Out. Handle the report, would you?”

She didn’t give her time to answer. She turned the corner and was quickly out of earshot, walking at a brisk pace. Her cane tapped the ground, but not of much use – she knew all the s treets within a ten block radius of the police station. Every rock, every crevice, every building had familiarity. She smelled Julia Simms’ cooking through the open window, heard the Whitt children laughing and running. She remembered seeing.

In a way, it was at least a little comforting; nothing changed. Mrs. Simms’ face was not marred with the telltale signs of her impending old age, and the Whitts were still awkward toddlers in her mind’s eye. She didn’t see the city changing. She didn’t see the people changing. And, maybe most of all, she didn’t have to see David’s face become thin and his complexion pallid with illness, didn’t have to see his coffin lowered into the wet-smelling dirt. She saw now only light and dark, and the vaguest silhouettes among the darkness.

“Watch where you’re going,” Terezi said sharply as she stepped around a passerby who nearly collided with her. This, however, resulted in her colliding with a structure which had not previously been there. She stepped back, recovering, and placed her hands on it. A rectangle, with ink she smelled on her fingers.

“You,” she ordered, poking her cane expertly into the toe of a nearby man’s boot. “What does this sign say?”

She felt his gaze momentarily upon her cane, then her eyes, before he stepped over to read for her.

“’Soothsaying, five pence. Stave off your doom.’” He paused, then commented, “that’s grim,” before returning to his own business.

“It is,” she murmured as he left. She looked up for any light sources nearby, and, noticing the distinct light of a lantern just behind the sign, headed over into what had once been an abandoned building.

Instead of a door, she found herself  gently moving wool curtains aside to enter. The air inside was thick and smelled of cinnamon and tea leaves, and she felt a presence sitting in the center. She walked forward, finding them behind a table littered with candles and cards.

“Hello,” greeted the soothsayer. His voice was nasally and slightly apathetic, with just the vaguest hint of curiosity. He was raising his eyebrow. Terezi prided herself on such things; she could gauge her surroundings with an almost ‘psychic’ sensing ability, herself.

“Greetings, good sir,” she answered, placing her free hand on her hip and leaning on the ornamental head of her cane. “Don’t be alarmed by my unexpected visit – you’re not under investigation.” She let out a laugh at her own commentary.

“I didn’t think I was,” he retorted quickly, as though he’d seen it coming a mile away. His tongue lisped the ‘ _s_ ’. It made him sound, Terezi noted, as though he had cotton in his mouth. “How _ever_ may I help the head detective, today?”

He stood, and Terezi could just see his silhouette. She didn’t recognize the voice, and certainly not the attitude, but was far from surprised that he knew her; after all, she was indeed the head detective. She felt him tower over her a good foot, but it wasn’t threatening in any sense; his shoulders and chest were thin. She couldn’t see any other particularly stunning details, except that he wore round spectacles on a straight nose.

“Soothsayer, correct? Say my sooths.” Her lips spread into a grin which set like a gash on her angular, though not entirely unattractive, face. The medium sat back down and motioned for her to do the same, then motioned to a small box with a slit top on the table.

“Five pence,” he said with a swish of a gloved hand.

She deposited his payment from her coinpurse, then looked over at him, hoping to land eye contact – but with blind eyes and two pairs of glasses between their gazes, it was a shot in the dark. “You know, you seem to be acquainted with me whilst I’ve never before met you.”

There was a pause before he spoke, and she could hear the smirk in his voice. “Madame, I _am_ a psychic. You can call me Captor. The Great Captor, if you’d like.”

“Terezi. Get on with it, then,” she answered, smirking in return. “ _Great Captor._ ”

Though she couldn’t see it, he placed several cards down on the table and his hands atop two of them, breathing in momentarily. It was all ceremonious, of course; he had heard the whispers as soon as Terezi had walked in, but he hardly knew of her blindness and anyway it was a habit.

“The fates,” he began slowly and deliberately, “are becoming twined tightly around you since a recent death.” The whispers flooded his head and his head pounded as if it could escape.

“You will be too preoccupied to see it coming. You will not realize in time that you are in the path of destruction, and as such it will not be merciful when it finds you. Your preoccupation, your obsession, will destroy you if you can’t destroy it first.”

Terezi stared at him intently as he spoke, trying to envision the mouth which spoke these words, but all she could see was the vague flicker of reflected light on his spectacles’ lenses. Something gripped her inside, despite her inner skeptic, and made gooseflesh break out on her arms. When he had stopped speaking and it seemed he was done, she reached up to smooth her hair with one gloved hand, forcing a smile back onto her face.

“Ah, how ridiculous. All in good fun, though – I will see to it that I get the better of my destruction. After all, I can’t die unless in the name of justice. I’m immortal.” She grinned wider, standing up.

“Less immortal than you think,” the soothsayer murmured in response, sighing after in a rather exaggerated fashion. “They never listen.”

Terezi shrugged her shoulders, starting towards the curtains. “I’ll be seeing you, Captor. Or, _theeing_ you.”

He lifted his heterochromatic eyes to watch her go with a rather antagonistic expression at her mocking comment – her back illuminated warmly by the candlelight before she slipped outside, and then he watched her shoes walk away the few steps till they were out of sight. He rubbed momentarily at his aching temples, then picked up the box and spilled out his payment into his hand to transfer to his bag.

She’d given him a whole shilling.

“Rich women,” he hissed, smiling despite himself.

Too bad about the way she’d die, he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing: Sir Captor, the doom-sayer! Next chapter, we get to meet Aradia! Sorry about how long I take to update.


End file.
